It’d make sense for a solo release from from a man as ubiquitous in virtuosic metal/noise/prog/punk/shred circles as big spending Zach Hill to come packing a stacked cameo list. Just yesterday we heard shards of his muscular invention on Marnie Stern’s ace junior LP lead listen “For Ash,” today it’s the first MP3 from Zach’s own sophomore solo release Face Tat. The album features everyone from Devendra Banhart to No Age to Prefuse 73’s Guillermo Scott Herren; “Memo To The Man” has Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier sitting in for some double-drumming, on a weirdly dark-pop groove track that dips into tricks from the West Coast (the chime of The Smell acts like Abe Vigoda or HEALTH) and the east (vocals like BKLYN’s !!!) and many points in between. Or in Zach’s amusing words:

This started from myself and friends making the kind of abrasive/forward music in ‘pop’ form I’d want to hear, but hadn’t. There’s an emphasis on experimenting with ‘destroying’ sounds so that the source of the melody, rhythms, vocals, etc., is not recognizable or traceable, and then building these things into abstract forms of pop music with conventional structures. Some of the most melodic aspects to this recording are coming from things like the sound of pissing/urinating on a stack of Rolling Stone magazines (I have a subscription), kicking in the screen of a computer, arguments on the street, etc.